Introduction Innu Culture What Do Foster Parents Need to Consider
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Introduction The idea for this guide Innu Culture Defining cultural identity Pre contact and post contact Collective trauma The Mushuau Innu and the Sheshatshiu Innu Innu values and beliefs Innu family structures Innu child rearing What Do Foster Parents Need to Consider About Fostering An Innu Child? Cultural identity Culturally competent foster parenting Building resilience Promoting Innu culture Being aware of your own prejudices Developing a positive relationship with the child’s family Grief and loss Conclusion References and Resources Contacts Introduction This guide has been developed by Innu health staff in the Prevention Services office of the Innu Round Table Secretariat. We have prepared this specifically for non-Innu foster parents who have been given the responsibility of caring for Innu children who are in the legal care and or custody of the Newfoundland Labrador Department of Children, Seniors and Social Development ( CSSD ). We consider this to be a first draft of the guide, because we believe that as we meet with foster parents throughout the province who are caring for Innu children away from home, that we will learn important messages that we will try to incorporate into the next version. The Innu vision for the future is that when an Innu child needs out of home care that we will have the necessary resources and supports in our communities so that our children will not need to be placed away from our culture and communities. However, until such time as that vision comes to be, we appreciate the importance of your role in providing a safe and caring environment for our children. We have put together this short guide in the hope that it will help to increase your knowledge of Innu culture and history and your understanding that an important part of your role as a foster parent for Innu children is to help them develop and maintain their Innu identity and connections to family and community. This is likely the most challenging aspect of being a foster parent to Innu children. We have put together the following information to try and help you with this critical part of your work. The idea for this guide has been borrowed and adapted from the resource booklet Foster Their Culture, Caring for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children in Out-Of-Home Care 1. The Torres Strait Islanders developed their booklet to help non-Indigenous foster parents care for Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander children placed in foster care. We acknowledge the rich history and culture of the Torres Strait Islander People and want to thank them for their commitment to all the children and their foster parents. Innu culture is not a perk to an Innu child 1 Innu Culture The following is a way to define culture: Culture is the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings that is transmitted from one generation to the next. Before we are born, our culture is already being determined. Our culture determines who we are, how we think, what we believe, how we communicate, and what we value. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of The Child 2 states ‘” you have the right to practice your own culture, language and religion- or any you choose. Minority and Indigenous groups need special protection of this right.” Children have many other rights. All these rights are connected to each other and equally important but there are reasons why Indigenous groups, including Innu children and families, need special protection of this right. The reasons for this are found in the history of our culture. What is Innu culture? Innu culture is the sum total of the ways of living built up by this specific group of human beings over thousands of years of nomadic life on the land we call Nitassinan, and that is transmitted from one generation to another. Innu ways of living include hunting and gathering knowledge and skills, a shared language, Innu aimun, and our dreams and spiritual beliefs, which are the foundation of our culture. Innu culture is not fixed in one period of time. It changes over time, as do all cultures. At one time, Innu walked and canoed huge distances but today we regularly use more modern forms of transportation, such as skidoos or trucks. We are an Indigenous culture, meaning our ancestors were the first human beings to occupy the land we call Nitassinan. As an Indigenous culture, there is a very significant point in the timeline of our history. That point is the period of time that is marked by contact between Innu and Western Europeans, dividing our history into two very distinct and different periods of time, pre-contact and post contact. 2 Pre-contact and post contact Innu life on the land, Nitassinan, is documented as going back thousands of years. Our culture was evolving over the generations. It was strong and intact. We had distinct ways of living that were perfectly adapted to suit the vast topography and weather across the seasons. Our dreams and the spiritual powers of our shamans were the basis for our spiritual beliefs. The caribou and all it offered was central to our ways of life. Our language reflected the richness of the land and all the knowledge that was being shared across generations. We had strong social systems that enabled us to rear up our children into competent adults, that enabled us to deal with risks and disharmony. The wellbeing of the collective was the focus because only working together were our ancestors able to survive and pass on the culture to the younger generation. Our culture began to change as contact with non-Innu became more frequent. Non-Innu said we needed to change. The early Priests, the “black robes” said our shamans and our belief in the animal masters were evil and that we needed to become Christians. They also believed we needed to be settled in one place because they wanted to teach our children their ways and they couldn’t do this effectively when we lived a nomadic way, following the caribou into the interior and travelling out to the ocean in the summers. This process that began with contact and continued on into the present is called colonization. Colonization has brought about dramatic and unintended impacts to the strength and transmission of our culture to the next generation. As experienced by Innu, colonization is a process whereby non-Innu governments and religious authorities systematically try to replace Innu ways of living with non-Innu ways. The basis for colonization was the belief that Innu culture and ways were inferior to Western European ways. The residential schools system across Canada was built on this same belief. We know now that cultures can be very different, even Indigenous cultures can be quite different from one another. However, cultures cannot be compared as being superior or inferior to one another. Tremendous harm to individuals, families and entire groups has come about as a result of one culture claiming superiority over another. 3 Collective and intergenerational trauma As a result of the process of colonization, Innu have experienced trauma, not only as individuals but as a whole group or collective. “trauma is when we have encountered an out of control, frightening experience that has disconnected us from all sense of resourcefulness, safety, coping or love.” 3 Not all Innu have experienced trauma to the same degree or from the exact same experiences. Everyone has their own story and everyone has been impacted. Consider the trauma experienced by grandparents in the 60’s when the villages were becoming year round settlements. Their value as elders, their knowledge of the land and travel routes, their belief in the power of Innu spiritual ways, the necessity that they pass on all these teachings to the next generation, all this was being attacked. The next generation, who were the first generation of Innu to grow up in the village year round, started going to school daily at the priest’s house. The boys were expected to be in church as altar boys. The elders were being displaced, parents were being displaced by the priest and by the teaching of non-Innu ways of living. Given this loss of value, of self-worth, it is not surprising that alcohol abuse became widespread. It is also not hard to understand how this trauma was passed down and became intergenerational. 4 What is important to know is that Innu understand that trauma doesn’t have to be an end to the story. We know we must try and address trauma and work hard to ensure that Innu children do not carry the trauma of their parents or grandparents’ generations through their lifetimes. Because trauma is marked by a loss of control, trauma work, treatment and helping “must start with creating an atmosphere of safety through predictable respectful relationships. For an individual to heal, they must feel safe and in control. Choice, empowerment and the ability to express how they feel and be heard are essential to recovery.” Dr. Bruce Perry (2006)4 The Mushuau Innu and Sheshatshiu Innu At the time of contact, non-Innu gave us names to try and distinguish us from other First Peoples they were encountering. We have been called the Montagnais and the Naskapi. We used group names to describe ourselves and distinguish our most common connections to place and others. Mushuaunut or people of the barrens, is the name we use to describe those who summered most frequently at the more northerly point of old Davis Inlet and then Davis Inlet.